Four, three, two—
I dropped from the tree. I slammed into him from behind, the weight of my impact shoving him forward. His sword flew from his hand before I could steal it. We rolled several feet, but I had the advantage of surprise. Scrabbling upright quickly, I stood over his back, landing several crushing blows to his wing scars before he shoved his foot back, sweeping my legs out from under me. I rolled away, missing the downward drill of a knife he’d extracted from his boot.
“Rixon?” I said, shocked to recognize the pale face and hawkish features of Patch’s former best friend glaring at me. Patch had personally chained Rixon in hell after he’d attempted to sacrifice me to get a human body.
“You,” he said.
We faced each other, knees bent, ready to spring. “Where’s Patch?” I dared ask.
His beady eyes clung to mine, narrowed and cold. “That name means nothing to me. Thing to he man is dead to me.”
Since he didn’t surge at me with the knife, I risked asking another question. “Why are fallen angels letting Dante lead you?”
“He forced us to swear an oath of loyalty to him,” he said, his eyes narrowing into twin slits. “It was that, or stay in hell. Not many stayed.”
Patch wouldn’t stay behind. Not if there was a way back to me. He’d swear the oath to Dante, as much as he’d rather rip out the Nephil’s neck, and then repeat the procedure with every other square inch of his body.
“I’m going after Dante,” I told Rixon.
He laughed, a hiss between his teeth. “I claim a prize for every Nephil body I drag back to Dante. I failed to kill ye before, and now I’ll do it properly.”
At the same time, we dived for his sword, several feet away. Rixon reached it first, rolling agilely onto his knees and slicing the sword crosswise at me. I ducked, hurtling myself at his midsection before he could swing again. I slammed him back against the ground on his wing scars. Taking advantage of his brief immobility, I disarmed him; I plucked the sword from his left hand, and the knife from his right.
Then I kicked his body over and plunged the knife deep into his wing scars. “You killed my dad,” I told him. “I haven’t forgotten.”
I hustled uphill toward the parking lot, glancing back to see that I wasn’t being followed. I had a sword, but I needed a better one. Recalling my training with Patch, I replayed every sword-stripping maneuver we had practiced together. When Dante met me in the parking lot, I would steal his sword. And I would kill him with it.
When I rounded the hill, Dante was waiting. He watched me, sliding his finger indolently back and forth over the tip of his sword.
“Nice sword,” I said. “I heard you had it made especially for me.”
His bottom lip curled marginally. “Only the best for you.”
“You murdered Blakely. A pretty cold way of saying thank you for all the prototypes he developed for you.”
“And you murdered Hank. Your own flesh and blood. A bit like calling the kettle black, isn’t it?” he quipped. “I spent months infiltrating Hank’s secret blood society and gaining his trust. I have to tell you, I raised a toast to my good fortune the day he died. It would have been far harder to dethrone him than you.”
I shrugged. “I’m used to being underestimated.”
“I trained you. I know exactly what you’re capable of.”
“Why’d you free fallen angels?” I asked bluntly, since he seemed amenable to sharing secrets. “You had them in hell. You could have defected and ruled the Nephilim. They never would have known the truth about your shifting loyalties.”
Dante smiled, his teeth sharp and white. He looked more animal than man, a swarthy, savage beast. “I’ve risen above both races,” he said in a voice so practical it was hard to think he didn’t truly believe it. “I will give Nephilim whe Nephilo survive my army’s attack this morning a similar choice to the one I gave fallen angels: swear loyalty to me or die. One ruler. Indivisible. With power and judgment over all. Wish you’d thought of it first?”
I held Rixon’s sword close to my body, shifting on the balls of my feet. “Oh, there are several things I’m wishing right now, but that’s not one of them. Why haven’t fallen angels possessed Nephilim this Cheshvan? I’m guessing you know, and don’t take that as a compliment.”
“I ordered them not to. Until I killed Blakely, I didn’t want him superseding my orders and distributing the devilcraft super-drink to Nephilim. He would have, if fallen angels had come against Nephilim.” Again, spoken so practically. So superior. He feared nothing.
“Where’s Patch?”
“In hell. I made certain his face never passed through the gates. He’ll stay in hell. And only when I feel like brutally abusing and tormenting something will he get a visitor.”
I lunged for him, swinging my sword lethally at his head. He sprang from its swath, countering with several explosive blows of his own. With each defensive block, my sword vibrated up to my shoulders. I gritted my teeth to battle the pain. He was too strong; I couldn’t fend off his powerful strokes forever. I had to find a way to strip his sword and puncture his heart.
“When was the last time you took devilcraft?” Dante asked, using his sword like a machete to hack at me.
“I’m done with devilcraft.” I blocked his strikes, but if I didn’t stop playing defense soon, he’d back me into the fence. Aggressively, I lunged to stab his thigh. He sidestepped, my sword driving into air and nearly unbalancing me.
The more you lean or stretch, the easier it will be for Dante to knock you over. Patch’s caution sounded in my head as clearly as he’d spoken it yesterday. I nodded to myself. That’s it, Patch. Keep talking to me.
“It shows,” Dante said. “I’d hoped you’d take enough of the poisonous prototype I gave you to rot your brain.”
So that had been his initial plan: get me addicted to devilcraft and let it quietly kill me. “Where are you storing the rest of the prototypes?”
“Where I can harness their power whenever I want,” he returned smugly.
“Hope you hid them well, because if there’s one thing I’m doing before I die, it’s destroying your lab.”
“The new lab is inside me. The prototypes are there, Nora, replicating over and over. I am devilcraft. Do you have any idea what it feels like to be the most powerful man on the planet?”
I ducked just in time to miss a chop at my neck. Quickening my steps and plunging my sword forward, I aimed for his stomach, but he danced sideways again, and the blade nipped the flesh above his hip instead. Blue liquid oozed from the wound, blooming across his white shirt.
With a guttural growl, Dante flew at me. I ran, jumping the stone wall encasing the parking lot.
Dew beaded the grass, and my balance f my balaaltered; I slipped and slid downhill. Just in time I scrabbled behind a gravestone; Dante’s sword speared the grass where I’d landed. He chased me through the headstones, swinging his sword at every chance, the steel ringing out as it clanged against marble and stone.
I ran behind the first tree I saw, putting it between us. It was on fire, popping and crackling as the flames devoured it. Ignoring the heat blasting my face, I faked left, but Dante wasn’t in the mood for games. He chased around the tree, holding his sword over his head as though he intended to slice me in half, skull to toes. I fled again, hearing Patch in my head.
Use his height to your advantage. Expose his legs. A hard strike to either knee, then steal his sword.
I ducked behind the mausoleum, flattening myself against the wall. The moment Dante moved into my line of vision, I stepped out from my hiding place, driving my sword into the flesh of his thigh. Watery blue blood spurted from the wound. He’d consumed so much devilcraft, his veins literally flowed with it.
Before I could retract my sword, Dante swung at me. I cleared his sword, but in doing so, had to leave my own buried in his leg. The emptiness in my hands suddenly felt very real, and I swallowed down panic.
“Forgot something,” Dante jeered, clenching his teeth as he pulled the blade out of his leg. He hurled my sword onto the mausoleum’s roof.
I dashed away, knowing his leg wound would slow him—until it healed. I hadn’t made it far before agonizing heat ripped into my left shoulder blade and spread down my arm. I stumbled to my knees with a cry. I glanced back, just able to see Pepper’s pearly-white dagger deeply lodged in my shoulder. Marcie must have given it to Dante last night. He limped up behind me.
The whites of his eyes sizzled blue with devilcraft. Blue sweat popped from his brow. Devilcraft trickled from his wound. The prototypes he’d stolen from Blakely were inside him. He’d consumed them all, and somehow had transformed his body into a devilcraft factory. A brilliant plan, except for one small detail. If I could kill him, every prototype on Earth would go with him.
If I could kill him.
“Your fat archangel friend confessed to enchanting that dagger specifically to kill me,” he said. “He failed, and Patch did too.” His lips curled in a nasty smile.
I ripped a marble headstone from the earth and hurled it at him, but he batted it away as though I’d flung a baseball.
I inched backward, relying on my good arm to drag me. Too slow.
I attempted a hurried mind-trick. Drop the sword and freeze! I shouted into Dante’s subconscious.
Pain splintered across my cheekbone. The blunt edge of his sword had lashed out so hard, I tasted blood.
“You’d dare mind-trick me?” Before I could recoil, he lifted me by the scruff of my neck and flung me savagely against a tree. The impact cast a fog over my vision and stole my breath. I tried to balance on my knees, but the ground rocked.
“Let her go.”
Scott’s voice. What was he doing here? My dazed apprehension lastehension d only a moment. I saw the sword in his hands, and sheer anxiety shot to every corner of my body.
“Scott,” I warned. “Get out of here now.”
His steady hands encircled the hilt. “I swore an oath to your father to protect you,” he said, never lowering his evaluating gaze from Dante.
Dante tipped his head back, laughing. “An oath to a dead man? How does that work?”
“If you touch Nora again, you’re as good as dead. That’s my oath to you.”
“Step aside, Scott,” Dante barked. “This isn’t about you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
Scott charged at Dante, the two battling in a blur of rapid strokes. Scott relaxed his shoulders, relying on his powerful build and athletic grace to make up for Dante’s experience and devilcraft-enhanced skill. Scott held the offense, while Dante skirted agilely to the side. A brutal arc from Scott’s sword severed the lower half of Dante’s left arm. Scott skewered the limb and held it up. “As many pieces as it takes.”
Dante cursed, sloppily slashing his sword at Scott with his usable arm. The ringing collision of their blades cracked the morning air, seeming to deafen me. Dante forced Scott back toward a towering stone cross, and I shouted my warning in mind-speak.